


Pat-a-Cake

by foolondahill17



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen, Harry Potter Next Generation, Next-Gen, Squibs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 06:06:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9058846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foolondahill17/pseuds/foolondahill17
Summary: Molly Weasley II, called Pat, and twenty-one lot and little-known facts. Or, how to navigate the Wizarding World while being a Weasley and being a squib.





	

Molly was called Pat. 

She had been ever since she could remember. Her middle name was Patricia, after Grandpa Crewson, whose name was Patrick. Sometimes people – cousins. Mostly cousins. Mostly James – teased her for having a boy’s name. But of course she _didn’t_ have a boy’s name. Her name was Molly, and that wasn’t a boy’s name at all. 

It happened when she was a baby. Her father wanted to name her Molly, after Grandma Weasley. But then someone else, probably Uncle Charlie, said they would need some way of telling them apart. Then someone else, probably Aunt Hermione, said that when a boy was named for the father, he was usually called by his middle name. Then someone else, probably Aunt Fleur, suggested Patricia. Then someone else, probably Aunt Ginny, suggested Paddy. Still someone else, probably Uncle George, suggested Pat. 

Pat didn’t necessarily dislike her name. It was just that there wasn’t very much she could do about it. 

_Lucy_ didn’t need to be called Art for Artura because Grandma Crewson died before Lucy was born.

* * *

For two years Pat was an only child. 

She was coddled. She was babied. She was dressed up and spoiled, petted and pampered. She probably enjoyed it. 

She couldn’t remember enjoying it. She couldn’t remember anything about it at all. 

She couldn’t remember a time when Lucy was not there. Lovely, adorable, perfect baby of the family – _the_ family, not just _their_ family.

Lucy came and took Pat’s place. Lucy came along and stolen – _ruined_ it. 

Pat didn’t necessarily dislike her little sister. It was just that there wasn’t very much she could do about her.

* * *

It was Hufflepuff. 

It was always Hufflepuff. People – family – were saying it constantly. Pat was loyal. Pat was kind. Pat was hard-working, friendly, and caring. She was the most Hufflepuff anyone had seen a Weasley in years. 

Pat almost didn’t mind. She wouldn’t mind not getting into Gryffindor. Not all Weasleys got into Gryffindor anymore, after all. Roxy was in Ravenclaw, so was Louis. Dom went to Beauxbatons. 

But… 

Gryffindors were brave. 

Ravenclaws were smart. 

Hufflepuffs were…loyal and kind and hard-working. 

To be brave was special. Even to be smart was special. 

But then in turned out that it wasn’t Hufflepuff. 

It wasn’t Gryffindor. 

It wasn’t Ravenclaw. 

It wasn’t even Slytherin.

* * *

Her mother was a Muggle. 

Although no one ever out-and-out said it, Pat knew they all thought that explained it. 

They always said she made a marvelous Squib, the best there was. They were so proud of her, they said. 

Grandpa Weasley wouldn’t stop asking her questions. 

So, this primerary school…? 

A bus? To school? With four wheels? 

And there’s only one ball used in a foofball game, is that correct? 

Have you actually gone to one of these cinemas? How is it they get the pictures to talk? 

Music? On that little scrap of metal? Marvelous things these Muggles think of.

* * *

She really hated her last name.

Weasley. Like a thin, winding, pointy-toothed, devilish, creeping little creature. She was teased about it in school until she smashed Robby Parker in the nose for calling her Weasel. 

She was fifteen and blood spurted everywhere, on his robes, on the walls, and on her fist. His nose was broken. When they deposited her in the Headmaster’s office all she could say for herself was that she was very sorry and, no sir, she wouldn’t ever do it again. 

Her best friend, Lex, stared at her in awe after Pat left the office. She whistled low and long. It was always the quiet ones you had to watch out for.

* * *

Uncle Charlie was her favorite. 

Maybe it was because he was the uncle she got to see the least, because he was living in Romania and only came home for Christmas, and sometimes not even then. 

She liked his smile, how it softened his hard, rectangular face and crinkled his eyes at the corners until they almost disappeared in wrinkles of tightly-pressed skin. She liked his loud, booming laugh, and how he was always the one at the dinner table to say the joke that made Grandma Weasley scold. 

She liked his rippling muscles and the shiny burn marks on his arms. She liked how his rough, calloused palms felt against her own smooth, tiny ones when he took her hand in his own and talked to her in a gentle voice – and made her believe that he cared, really cared, about what she had to say. 

Usually when Pat tried to talk all the other cousins yelled and laughed and jostled her to the side. And he didn’t listen to her like Aunt Hermione listened to her – patronizing, patient look on her face. He nodded his head and looked her in the eye, listened to her like she was the only one in the room.

* * *

She thought Quidditch was a thoroughly stupid sport. 

That had, of course, nothing to do with the fact that she couldn’t ride a broomstick for her life. She sometimes wondered bitterly if it had anything to do with being a squib – or maybe she was just clumsy. 

But Quidditch wasn’t nearly as athletic as football – and Pat was top forward on her team. You couldn’t be clumsy and still be good at football. 

It sometimes bothered her that no one in her dad’s family understood that. None of them even knew the rules to football except for Uncle Harry and Aunt Hermione, and Aunt Hermione didn’t care about sports.

* * *

Pat was secretly proud for always being an inch-and-a-half taller than Lucy.

* * *

For three months, when Pat was eight, she had a monstrous crush of Teddy Lupin, who was nineteen.

It didn’t matter that he was eleven years older than she. It didn’t matter because people married people who were older than themselves all the time. 

But then Pat learned from Lily, who was nine, that Lily was the one marrying Teddy. Lily knew Teddy better than her. Pat’s family never had Teddy over to dinner like the Potters did. Besides, Lily had a crush on Teddy for _ages_ , not just a few months. That meant Lily had dibs.

* * *

Sometimes Pat’s father had the most outlandish ideas. 

_Let’s all go Christmas shopping in the Diagon together and wear matching sweaters. No, you cannot wear those dress robes because they come above your knee. I don’t want you watching that film because it’s rated 12A._

I turned twelve last month. 

_You and Lucy can share a room at Grandma’s, can’t you? No, you cannot date that boy because he has a tattoo of a dragon on his arm._

Uncle Charlie has a tattoo of a dragon on his arm. 

_No, Pat._

* * *

Pat liked her cousins on her mother’s side better than those on her father’s side. 

Party because there were only three. Uncle David was her mother’s brother, and he was married to Aunt Clara. They had had three children, Matt, Sarah, and Kyle. 

Pat liked them because they were quiet, well-behaved children who enjoyed playing tag, and hide-and-seek, and board games when Pat and Lucy came over. Kyle played football, too, and he was a Keeper and let Pat take shots on him. He was a pretty good Keeper but sometimes Pat had to slow down a little so he wouldn’t feel bad for not saving many shots. 

Pat already knew all the games they played. Lucy had to be explained the rules twice before she got them right.

* * *

She wrote in a journal every night before she went to bed. 

She picked up the habit when she was ten. She was given a neat little book with a plane black cover and empty pages for her birthday – she couldn’t remember which Aunt or Uncle gave it to her – and that night she wrote her first entry: 

_Dear Diary,_

_I suppose that’s what people are supposed to call you. I was given you today for my birthday. I’ve just turned ten-years-old. I don’t know what else to write, except I had a very good birthday. Maybe I’ll see you again tomorrow if I remember to write._

_– Molly Patricia Weasley, but you can call me Pat, because it’s what everyone else does_

The next day she thought and thought about what else to write in her journal, and by the time she finally sat down to write she had so much to say she was told off by her father for staying up too late. 

She splattered herself over those pages. It felt as if it was her soul, written out in blood and sweat and ink. She didn’t think she could have lived anymore if she ever couldn’t not write in those pages again. 

She would have burned the book in a heartbeat if anyone else threatened to read it.

* * *

She didn’t know whether or not she wanted to marry a wizard. 

Marrying a wizard would mean staying where she was now. It would mean he would have a job in the ministry and she would stay at home or have a job in the Muggle world. And all their wizard friends would ask him what his wife did and he would answer that she was a squib and did something boring, and unimportant, and Muggle. 

But not marrying a wizard would mean no one would ever ask any questions or be utterly shocked at the answers. It would also mean hiding and skirting, and secrets and lies to get around why they never went to her side of the family for holiday, and why Aunt Lucy always wore dressed up bathrobes and not pants and a t-shirt. 

But maybe that would be worth it.

* * *

By Year Seven she realized she had a higher academic education than her father. 

After that she asked her mother to help her when she was stumped on her homework.

* * *

When she grew up she wanted to be a doctor. 

Not a Healer. A Doctor. 

Magical medicine didn’t make any sense. She didn’t believe that muttering a couple nonsense words over a broken bone or open wound would make it better – not really better. 

She’d only been to St. Mungos once, when Lucy fell off their parents’ bed after she’d been warned not to try a backflip. Pat saw the Healer’s mint-green robes and the way they brushed aside Lucy’s broken wrist with a swish of their wand and a _be careful next time._

 

She thought the inside of a human body was fascinating. She sat, spell-bound in her biology lab when they dissected a pig while some of the other girls had gone to pieces. She even volunteered to use the scalpel. 

She wanted to be someone who wore a white coat and a stethoscope around their neck, who would laugh and make the patients feel better, hold their hands when she delivered bad news, smile and pat them on the back when the news was good. 

There was too much impatience in magical medicine. It was too quick and too methodical. There was no _humanity_ in it. 

Pat wanted to be the doctor to brush away her sister’s terrified, painful tears and muttere comforting words in her ear. _Everything is going to be alright. You’re going to be alright. Don’t you worry. It might take a little time but your wrist is going to be just fine._

* * *

She knew her mother had a miscarriage before Pat was born. 

She sometimes wondered about that tiny, unnamed baby whom had never really been much more than a soul. She wondered whether it was a boy or a girl. She wondered what it would have been like to have an older sibling. 

She wondered, perhaps, it might have been the squib instead of her. 

More than that she wondered, even if the baby was magical, if perhaps it wouldn’t have been quite so bad, having an older sibling who was magical instead of only a younger one.

* * *

Pat had soft auburn curls, a mixture of her dad’s red frizz and mum’s light-brown waves.

She inherited her father’s eyesight and was the only cousin besides Lily who wore glasses. She had her mum’s soft, round face, but her father’s tall, gangly figure, which was always an odd mixture – especially in secondary when she wanted the boys to look at her as something other than that baby-faced, flat, wiry, and quick-as-a-blink forward on the girls’ team who had scored more goals this year than even Carla Fawcett from last year. And Carla Fawcett was going on to play for university.

* * *

She had always been quiet. 

It wasn’t that she was shy, just that she thought not much ever really needed to be said.

* * *

She really enjoyed chess. 

She played Uncle Ron every chance she got. 

She felt so good, so triumphant, the first game she finally lost to him. She was thirteen and before that he always let her win.

* * *

Pat only held a wand twice in her life. 

The first time, she was seven. They – family – was telling her all that year that there was still time. Uncle Neville didn’t show his first sign of magic until he was nearly eight. 

There was still time. Plenty and plenty of time. 

One night she snuck quietly out of bed to her parents’ room. She listened to her father snore and tip-toed to the dresser, fishing for his wand in the dark. Her hand closed around the handle and she was so relieved to finally be holding it that she didn’t watch where she was going and stubbed her toe on the doorframe. 

She muffled a whimper of pain and her father grunted in his sleep, but neither of her parents woke so Pat snuck down the stairs to the sitting room. 

She held his wand tightly in her hands. It felt smooth and cold beneath her skin. She whirled it around and tried – thought – wished – prayed with all her might for _something. Anything. Just please, a little spark, a whisper of air, a bead of light, a feeling. Anything. Anything, please._

But it felt so smooth, and cold, and empty. Useless, thin, breakable like a simple stick of wood. 

_Please, anything, just anything._

* * *

The second time she was thirteen. Lucy was back from the Diagon, skipping, giggling, glowing, talking with the trill in her voice she got when she was so, so happy. Pat snuck into her sister’s room that night and ran her hand over her night table in the dark.

Her fingers closed around the thin stick of wood and she held her breath as she tip-toed out again. Pat crept down the stairs into the sitting room and closed her eyes. 

_Please. Just once. Just something. Just anything. I want to go to Hogwarts. I want to be in Hufflepuff. I want to be with my sister. I want to be with my cousins. I want to be like them. Please, I want to be a witch. I want to do magic. Please, just anything. Just for a second. Just for a second and I won’t ever bother you again. Just a little glimmer of magic. Just some tingling in my fingers. Please. Give me something. Anything. Please…._

The stick in her hand was so thin. It was so delicate. It would have been so easy to snap it. It would have been so easy to scream – to cry – to run back upstairs and launch herself at Lucy who was so _happy_ – 

But Pat didn’t want it to be easy. She didn’t want to do anything she already knew how to do. She didn’t want to be what she already was.

* * *

She sometimes wondered about that second cousin of Grandma Weasley’s who was an accountant.

* * *

End.


End file.
